


A Vine of Kisses

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [79]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Angst, Chris is Unfailing Kind, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, Secrets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 19:41:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15250608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: When he looks up, Evans is standing there, face creased with sleep, faded boxers pulled haphazard over his hips.“Seb?” he croaks, squinting into the hallway. “Hey. What’s wrong?”Everything, Seb wants to say.You. But instead he swallows hard and says: “Can I come in?”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A continuation of a previous Mental Mimosa ficlet, "Nightshade."
> 
> For the purists among you, chapter 1 is the original ficlet; chapter 2 includes today's writing.

A secret is a deadweight. It’s like a black hole in his soul, a gravity well, a doorway into his own personal hell, which is funny given that most people think about love in terms of flowers and rainbows, as an unabashedly Good Thing. Some people, Seb knows, spend their whole lives chasing it, reaching for the cotton candy feelings that the world tells them they should want, that they might even think they deserve. He’s never had to seek it out, love; he goes head over heels easily. Always has, even if he usually keeps those feelings to himself. But it’s never felt like this before, like something with teeth that’s consuming him, gnawing on his lungs and gnashing at his heart and making him bleed black and thick, a tar that sticks to his tongue, stops his feet, keeps him on his side of the door.

Until now, tonight, in Germany.

It’s two AM, nearly three, and something kicked him out of sleep hard, had him sitting up, panting, his hands in his hair, clutching his skull. Shaking, shaking. He’d been dreaming about Chris, about his mouth, about that delighted smile he likes to wear going lazy as Seb licks at his throat, winds a vine of kisses down his chest, over his ribs. He’d been dreaming of Chris’s fingers tucked against the back of his neck, warm points of pressure that push and flex and sigh when Seb gets it right. He’d been dreaming of the sleepy heat of Chris’s body, the slope between his hips, the noise he’ll make when Seb nuzzles the swell of his dick, buries his face there and breathes, breathes.

“Baby,” Evans says in his dream, his voice rough and silver, “the things you do to me.”

A dream, it was. Only. The fervent bloom of his secret, a nightshade, a poison he can’t ever allow to escape.

Except now he’s awake and he’s out of bed and he’s fumbling for his jeans in the dark, for his keycard, his shirt. His heart is a timpani and he isn’t thinking, he’s moving, driven by the hungry thing that’s inside him, the thing that wants, the thing he’d held back for so long, and now he’s letting it drive him down the hall in his bare feet to Chris’ door and the weight of it, his secret, is like a boulder in his fist, the one that knocks hard, the one that finds the wall and holds him up as his knees shake, as he waits.

Loving somebody you work with isn’t the worst crime in the world. Seb gets that. It happens to actors all the time, anyway; the kind of intense emotional pretending takes a toll on your inner compass, on your ability to distinguish between what’s real and what’s not. It’s fine. It’s even fun, sometimes, to wallow in feelings, a crush, without having to take any responsibility for them. And it’s a damn good way to get laid.

This thing his heart has for Evans, though, has gone way beyond that, and fuck, it’s dragged him down, made their relationship more complicated, though he’s sure Evans has no idea why. Why Seb can’t sit next to him between takes and shoot the shit like they use to, why he can’t come over on a day off and watch marathons of bad TV and see who could order the weirdest shit from room service and actually finish it. Why he can’t talk to Chris anymore, not about stuff that matters, because what he wants to say, what he aches to, is god help me, I love you and he can’t say that, can’t hang the weight of his secret around Chris’s neck and watch it drag him down, too. Because Chris doesn’t love him and he’d feel so guilty about it, turning Seb down, assuring him that nothing would change between them but of course of it would, of course. It would have to.

He presses his head to gold wallpaper and closes his eyes and knocks–what the fuck is he doing?–one last time.

And this time, the door opens.

This time, when he looks up, Evans is standing there, face creased with sleep, faded boxers pulled haphazard over his hips.

“Seb?” he croaks, squinting into the hallway. “Hey. What’s wrong?”


	2. Chapter 2

_Everything_ , Seb wants to say. _You_. But instead he swallows hard and says: “Can I come in?”

Chris doesn’t hesitate; steps back from the door and waves Seb in.

He steps inside, grateful, except fuck, it’s dark, the air like pitch once Chris shuts the world away, leaves only the two of them standing in the shadows side by side.

“What’s going on?” Chris says, in that same, sleep-drugged voice. His hand finds Seb’s arm, gives him a warm, uneven squeeze. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, man.”

Seb wants to curl into it--that voice, that beautiful body, the ocean of affection promised by the friendly clutch of Chris’s hand. He wants to do it so bad that it chokes him, snatches the words from his tongue and leaves his mouth filled with silence, rough and soft like so much cotton.

“Hey.” Chris steps closer, so close Seb can feel the echo lines of Evans’ heart, pounding tired and steady against Seb’s t-shirt. “Sebbie? You ok?”

“No.” A word at last, humid and faint. If he lifted his face, tilted his head right now, he could spill that same word over Chris’s mouth, could get a taste of him, just one. Just once. All at once his thoughts are tangled and wild, like a angry, living vine: is this what he came for? To torture himself? Was he so far gone that he’d walk into the arms of this kind of torture--having Chris so close to him, so kind, so utterly clueless--just so he could later remember the ache?

“No?” The hand on his arm shifts, turns broad across his shoulder, down his back. “I’m sorry.”

Not _what’s wrong with you_ or _how can I fix it_. Just: _I’m sorry_.

That kindness breaks him. Burns the last of Seb’s good sense to ash and in its absence, he feels his arms lifting, feels them wrap solid around Chris’s waist. His face is hot, his whole body, but Chris smells so good, the stale of sleep mixed up with his aftershave, and Seb’s held this shit at bay for so long. He can set the weight of down for a second, can’t he? Lay it gentle at Chris’s feet for a moment and take this, have this; tuck his cheek against Chris’s and take a deep breath, remember how feels to be able to breathe without doing something irrevocable and stupid, without smashing up the last strands of their friendship. Yes, he tells himself, foolish. Yes, he can.

Chris makes a sound, a startled kind of sigh, but he doesn’t pull away. No. He leans in.


End file.
